Like every India thread, some people here (mostly from the west, I suppose) writing how bad the Indian PM is (terrorist, monster) without having much idea either about the complexities of the issues or knowledge of the events that happened. Not their fault as they get their opinions made by the media and we all know thar media never has any agenda or bias (/s). As an Indian living in India and someone deeply interested in politics, let me try explaining.
This is what I posted in the other thread. Mostly concerns about the BJP (Modi's party) and Indian politics.
Its a very complicated topic so its hard to do justice, but the basic gist is that there are no fence sitters. For close to 60 years the Congress (opposition of BJP) mollycoddled the minorities (especially Muslim) that it drove most Hindus towards the other extreme. Some of the laws policies of Congress went as far as being directly anti-hindu (RTE, the proposed communal act, handling of Pandit exodus from kashmir, handling of Godhra train burning..the list goes on). The Congress was so towards the deep end that when 59 hindu pilgrims were burnt alive in a train by a Muslim mob in Godhra (more on it later), Congress formed a committee and announced that the fire was spontaneous! Despite there being overwhelming proof that it was done by a mob which came from a mosque nearby! In fact, the mob was lead by a Congress leader (who also stopped fire trucks from reaching the spot). Do you think that would not enrage the Hindus and make them hate the Congress party? And the more the Hindus protested and drifted towards BJP, the more Congress went towards minorities. In the end the situation became so that most of the Hindus deserted the Congress and went with BJP (and hence the complete rout of Congress from almost whole India). Nevertheless Congress has had control over the media, state institutions, universities and much more in its 60 years of rule and that continues to a substantial extent. The media has almost become the third arm of Congress in opposing the BJP.
So basically most of the Indians have gone for BJP and hate Congress to the core. Ones with Congress hate the BJP for taking the power they thought they would always have and fan the fires, often via media, in hoping they would come back to power or at least damage the reputation of BJP. Each group hates the other to the core.
Obviously the summary doesnt contain the nuances and the issue is far far more complicated. The media has its own narrative (be it Indian or western) and serves what it wants to portray. The narrative of 'Hindus killing Muslims' is just that, a narrative. In India there are bound to be clashes between 2 people of different communities and a lot of them would not be communal in nature. If a Muslim dies, be it for any reason, the narrative gets made. Hindus too die (be it the recent killings in Kerala or Bengal, be it 2 kids in MP who were killed because they supported a singer who didn't like loud azaans..And so on) at the hands of Muslims for various reasons, but there is no narrative to be made there.
Coming to Modi. He gets most hate for the 2001 riots. Before accusing him of things, maybe people should read up a bit. It started with the Godhra train burnings, where 59 hindu pilGrims were burned alive by a Muslim mob. What do you think would happen? That there would be no reprisals at all? That Hindus would not ba angered? Nevertheless, modi (who had just become the chief minister of the state) anticipated it asked the three nearby states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra) to send reserve forces to control the situation. This call was sent the same day the burnings happened. All 3 states were ruled by the Congress at the time, and refused. Massive riots across the state ensued. And while the media likes to portray that the government did nothing, around 200 out of the total 900 killed were Hindus and most of them died when the police opened fire to control the riots.
The Congress ruled the center for 10 years after that, and tried every resource they had to get evidence against Modi and to put him behind bars. Did not happen. The Supreme Court (which also leans left in India) made investigative committee and years of their investigation didn't find anything against Modi. He was freed of all charges and is now, as you all know, Prime Minister of India.
To those who say or think that they know more about the matter, via mere sound bytes from a clearly non-partisan (/s) media, than people who live in India, people who saw it happen, the Supreme Court of India and in general the people of India, I say get off the high horses and maybe do a lot of unbiased research on the topic before calling the PM of a huge and complex country a monster or terrorist.